Not Good
by ziggy pop eno
Summary: The youngest headmaster in European wizarding history is appointed in a school in Ireland. He isn't sure what to do and enists the help of a particularly bright student of his to be his 'secret vice-principle'. More characters from the books to come. Flam


Not Good  
By TheRogue  
  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for the characters you don't recognize, yeah, those are mine. So I own next to nothing.  
  
  
Professor Julius Brehan was a genius, one of the only ones to come from his small magical school in Monaghan, Ireland: Concubar Academy. He was renowned in his country as an authority on magical theory. He was a great teacher, and now, after much thought on the part of the Irish Ministry of Magic, he was the new headmaster of Concubar as well. Looking at these facts and others, Julius seemed like the perfect headmaster. Except for one thing the ministry hadn't counted on: he was only 22 years old. The youngest headmaster in the history of European magical schools. And thus, he joined the likes of Olympe Maxime and Albus Dumbledore in being a very controversial appointment.   
  
Julius was inexperienced, that was true; he'd only been teaching for two years; he had been the charms master. But that didn't mean he couldn't teach. In fact, he had been an excellent teacher when he'd been doing it. Julius thought he had the whole 'headmaster' thing figured out. But in reality, he had no idea what he was doing. And he was scared out of his wits about starting the school year. He wanted to ask someone about what he was supposed to do exactly, but he had a feeling all the teachers hated him, since he got the job they all thought they deserved. And Julius pretty much hated being hated.  
  
Thinking of all this and feeling ever more desperate, Julius curled into a ball on his bed, in his tiny apartment in the heart of Monaghan.   
  
  
Ellis very much needed to find a different line of work. Dusting the wand boxes, dealing with some customers and doing paper work at Mr. Oleander's wand shop was starting to get on her nerves. She did love Mr. Oleander very much, after all, she was his granddaughter, but it did get aggravating after doing it every summer for three years, and she had developed a bad allergy to dust, which caused her to cough every few minutes (owing to the large amount of dust in the shop). At that moment, Ellis was trying to restrain a screaming little boy with sandy blonde hair while his mother was fitted for a wand by Mr. Oleander.   
  
"Ouch! That hurt, you little menace! No, no put that down!" hissed Ellis when the boy picked a wand Mr. Oleander had discarded and started whacking her furiously with it. Every time Mr. Oleander decided a wand wasn't right for the woman, he threw it behind him haphazardly, usually to be caught by the little child or Ellis. She had yanked the wand out of his hand had grasped him tightly by his arms when the shop keeper yelled "That's it! That's the one! Over here now, and I'll wrap it up for you." Ellis sighed inwardly. They would be gone soon.   
  
Fifteen minutes later, they had left, the child screaming and the mother screaming at him to stop screaming. Ellis collapsed into an armchair. Five minutes until she received her pay for the day and could go home.   
  
"Ellis, my dear, I need you to make a house call," the short and portly Mr. Oleander said to her softly from behind the counter.   
  
She groaned. "You're kidding, right, Grandpa? You're going to have me make a house call right before we close up shop?"  
  
"Sorry, hon, but you know I pride myself on being on of the only surviving wand-makers to still make house calls. And I told the fellow I'd have this to him today. He ordered a new wand, same us the one he had before, except new."  
  
Ellis wanted to tell him that he was being redundant and annoying as well, but refrained. She just rolled her eyes and sighed. "Okay, I'll go, but I'm not lingering to give pleasantries, like you always do. I'm dropping it off, and going, understand?" she said standing up and stretching.   
  
"I understand, hon. Do what you like, just deliver the wand good and safe." Oleander said with a knowing smile, handing her the nicely wrapped package. He'd been subjected to that sigh and eye-roll more times then he could count, but she always did what he asked, and did a good job. He guessed that his granddaughter just enjoyed being difficult.   
  
  
Julius touched his forehead and winced as pain shuddered through his head. Last thing he remembered, he had been on his bed, wrestling with his emotions. Now he was on the floor facedown with a large, bleeding cut on his forehead. 'Perhaps I rolled off the bed when I was wrestling,' he thought, a grim attempt at humor. He got up, and started to walk to the bathroom, when the doorbell rang.   
  
'Wonderful, it's probably one of my new employees coming to murder me in my sleep. Then again, they probably wouldn't ring the doorbell,' he thought to himself again.   
  
He opened the door to find and interesting person on the other side. Though she was clearly at least five years younger then Julius, she was a head taller then him. Julius was once again reminded of his lack in height, something he did not enjoy being reminded of. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back in two messy little buns that were side by side above the nape of her neck. Judging from the look in her eyes, she was pissed. The girl looked very familiar to him. Then he remembered: she was one of his students, who would be a 7th year in two days. Ellis, her name was, she had been one of the best at charms, but also a very big trouble maker, and very fond of randomly insulting teachers. He remembered her well; because of the many evenings she'd spent with him in detention they had become quite friendly with each other. He was surprised to see her at his apartment; he wasn't sure how she had found out his address, or what she wanted.  
  
"Oh! Hello, Professor Julius Brehan. Or, shall I say, Headmaster Julius Brehan," She said quickly overcoming her surprise, and smiling down at him.  
  
"Hello, Miss Ellis Oleander. Come in. How is the weather up there in the upper stratosphere?" he asked, ushering her inside and clapping one hand over his head wound.   
  
Indicating the package she held, she said, "I'm delivering the wand you ordered from Mr. Oleander. I work for him; he's my grandfather." She handed him the package and peered more closely at his face. Something was wrong. She now saw that his eyes were red and his cheeks were wet from crying. Also, he was trying to cover up a large cut that was now bleeding quite freely.   
  
"Let me clean that up for you," Ellis said, pulling his hand away from the cut, both of them still standing in the doorway. "I'm not bad at healing magic, and you know that people can't heal themselves." Before he could protest (which he was going to do) she had placed her own hand on the cut, and a chilling feeling spread over it. He could feel the gash shrinking, and skin growing in to replace it. Ellis took her hand away, and wiped the blood on it on her robes. "There you are. Good as new," she commented, though not with much enthusiasm. She was worried about her teacher. Something was not good. He was avoiding her eyes now, and twiddling his hands oddly. She decided to jump strait to the point, as usual, her not being a shy person whatsoever.   
  
"Okay, what is going on? You've been crying, that much I can tell. I can also see you're plainly nervous. What's up?"  
  
Julius collapsed on his sofa, and Ellis plopped down next to him. He sighed, rubbing his forehead, as if expecting the gash to still be there. "You wouldn't understand," he mumbled in his heavy Southern Irish burr.   
  
"Try me."   
  
He rolled his eyes. She was so stubborn. "Right...I'm just...nervous I guess about being headmaster. Everybody at Concubar hates me, and I don't what I'm supposed to do as the headmaster, or anything. And all these problems with Northern Ireland are spilling over to the academy. And I'm just...really confused," he finished lamely, his starting to well up again. 'Right Julius, now you seem like a very capable headmaster,' he belittled himself silently.   
  
Ellis looked at him. He had a long nose and an open face, with a mouth made for grinning, which it wasn't. His unusually light brown hair was mussed and messy, and his greenish-blue eyes were full of sorrow. He was usually handsome, but now his looks were diminished by his look of sadness. She had to help him. There had to be some way to make him feel better...reassure him that it was going to be okay, that he was a really good guy, and all that stuff she read in books.  
  
"Um...I can help you! I can be, like, your physiatrist, or something, and we can come up with ideas and solve problems together...you won't be in it alone." She cursed herself as soon as she made this comment. The last thing she needed during her final year at Concubar was to be a vice-principle in secret. But she had already said it, and couldn't take it back now.  
  
Julius raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Yeah, right."  
  
Ellis reluctantly said, "Seriously, we can be partners. Just until you get the hang of things and the Northern Ireland problems are dealt with."  
  
Julius sighed again. "Okay. It's a deal."  
  
  
A/n: There will be more dealing with characters from the book in the next chapter and the rest of the chapters. So calm yourself, and save those flames for burning bridges.  



End file.
